


Tame Your Demons

by SierraNovembr



Series: Bucky Barnes learns to be loved [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Bucky solves problems and feelings with his fists, Canon-Typical Violence, Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Pre-Slash, Tony Stark Bingo 2019, bucky barnes pov
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-10
Updated: 2019-02-10
Packaged: 2019-10-25 11:33:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,841
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17724398
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SierraNovembr/pseuds/SierraNovembr
Summary: He builds his picture of Tony one detail at a time, until the flash-blindness from Tony’s brilliance starts to ease and Bucky sees things in the shifting shadows.  Tony is a man of many shadows, some old and deep.[For my Tony Stark Bingo square S5: Bucky Barnes/Winter Soldier]





	Tame Your Demons

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first ever bingo fill! I am so excited to share it. Thanks to the discord party people for being motivating and especially to Faustess and Cinnamon_Anemone for the cheer reading when I got a little intimidated by the sheer awesome happening in this bingo.

Bucky likes to know. 

It’s partially natural inclination. His niece tells him over tea, which she takes black with one sugar in a delicate cup, that his sister would tell her children stories of Uncle Bucky who was always getting into places he shouldn’t have been, sneaking in to listen to conversations after he’d been put to bed. 

She doesn’t tell him that when he was older, Bucky snooped through the love letters his sister got from her high school sweetheart. This is a fact he remembers on his own, and that makes it special. He might remember wishing that Bill had been writing such things to _him_ , but the thought is paper-thin and Bucky shies away from it rather than risk it ripping.

Steve tells stories about how Bucky could call facts to mind like reading them from a book. Baseball tidbits had filled up his head, shiny and harmless, Jimmy Jordan’s RBIs and how many runs the Dodgers have given up this season. During the war, names and ranks and other details from the intel reports jumped into his head and stayed there, and the Howlies all came to rely on his recall.

It’s something he learned for survival. _Mission Report_. Punishment for omission of facts, through intent or accident, was severe.

It wasn’t framed as such, but the punishment for perfect recall was hardly less so. Wipe the machine. Start anew.

Bucky likes to know. It’s a comfort, now, the way that having enough money is to the formerly destitute; the way that water is all the sweeter when you’ve been hours without. The things he knows about himself are only the rare pieces washed up after the shipwreck he has become. It’s all he can do, some days, to keep from sinking in the dark waters of the unknown. But there are new things to know, here in this future he was never supposed to see. Bucky reads up on the team, trying to find out their histories whenever he was frustrated with his own lack thereof. He reads SHIELD reports and gossip columns and everything in between. He observes, quietly from his corner, as their lives spool out around him. He isn’t a threat. He isn’t a machine. He isn’t quite a part of it all, but he’s allowed. They allow him to know.

These days Bucky is a miser, hoarding facts in his collection, always on the lookout for more. Some are rare and he had precious few, like the way he understands the quirk of Nat’s eyebrows. Some are cheap and plentiful. Tony drops details like pennies, what he likes to eat, song lyrics he enjoys, gossip, but though Bucky has collected a mountain, it still feels like he hasn’t earned anything at all. Sometimes, though, when Tony is more tired than normal in the evening, or Bucky catches him in the quiet hour before dawn, he’ll realize there’s a few small diamond chips in there, in what’s becoming a vault devoted just to Tony, and he feels _rich _.__

__He builds his picture of Tony one detail at a time, until the flash-blindness from Tony’s brilliance starts to ease and Bucky sees things in the shifting shadows. Tony is a man of many shadows, some old and deep._ _

__*********************_ _

__The kid has dark hair and huge eyes and he’s obviously an Iron Man fan. He’s trying to get to Tony, but the street is crowded with grateful citizens and press at this point. Bucky shakes his head a little, watching the spots dance in the corner of his eyes. He’s trapped on the wrong side of the throng himself. Getting knocked through a building would make anyone tardy, but he’s checked in with the team on comms and been informed that no one will miss his silent brooding behind Steve in the interviews. Bucky leans against a convenient wall and watches the show from back here. He’s just started to relax, enjoying the way that Tony over-emphasizes his gestures in the armor, when he sees the kid brush off an older man, stare locked on Tony. The man – could be his father, maybe an uncle – takes immediate issue with his treatment and wrenches the boy around by his arm. The boy cries out, and there is a defiant glint in his eyes for all of a second before the man’s heavy hand comes down on his face._ _

__The boy doesn’t really look like Tony, but for that brief, angry moment, he was undeniably familiar._ _

__The dominos fall in Bucky’s mind. There was a tiny flinch, once, when Steve lost his temper and sneeringly called him Anthony. There were hospital records with missed follow-up appointments. Poorly-explained notes in Tony’s boarding school report cards. Paparazzi photos buried in the end of the gossip magazine; Tony’s sunglasses not quite covering a bruise._ _

__The whole fucked up situation pricks at Bucky’s insides until it feels like he’s bleeding. He burns for a moment with the knowledge that someone had hurt Tony, a young, vulnerable Tony and doesn’t that just make him want to rage and hurt something._ _

__Or, better yet, someone._ _

__The father drags the kid off, away from the gathered Avengers, and Bucky rolls away from the wall and melts into the crowd. He trails the pair for close to thirty minutes before they trudge into a nondescript door in a row of narrow condo buildings._ _

__Bucky waits. He’s good at waiting. Eventually, the cool evening sets in and pedestrian traffic in the area dies down._ _

__The man leaves his home, dragging a wheeled trash bin behind him. His muttering is audible even over the noise of the plastic wheels over the concrete driveway. Bucky has him shoved against the brick side of the building in less than a heartbeat. He has dark hair streaked with gray and his eyes are currently huge with fear. Bucky doesn’t blame him; many would be frightened when confronted with a ghost story come to life. Bucky’s face and arm are covered, but the bulk of him, the way he carries himself like a predator, is enough to intimidate stronger men than this coward who picks on children._ _

__The crunch of bone registers to Bucky before he realizes that he has let his fist fly. The man lets out a garbled scream and Bucky matches it with a low, raw sound. The man slumps in his hold, and Bucky roughly slams him back upright. That’s when the begging starts. He’s immune to such noise._ _

__His blows continue, the person in front of him starting to blur red at the edges of his awareness until a higher, but equally panicked voice breaks through the haze._ _

__“Stop! Stop it!” The kid is standing on the little porch, gripping the railing and screeching at Bucky. Bucky freezes, looking from the kid to the wheezing man in his grip and back again._ _

__“Go away! Leave us alone!” He’s not brave or stupid enough to approach the men in the alley, but he is making enough ruckus that Bucky’s instincts have him fleeing several blocks over before he manages to duck into another, darker, alley and realize what it is that he has done._ _

__There’s blood on his hands. The smell of it has collected behind his face mask. He tears it off, desperately gulping air fresh air that does nothing to make him feel cleaner. Unbidden, the thought of Tony seeing him, right now, like this, slams into Bucky and he curls down to the ground. He crouches in a small ball and whimpers._ _

__It takes a long time for Bucky to compose himself enough to stand. When he does, his knees nearly fold back down._ _

__He manages to compartmentalize enough to take care of his appearance in a McDonald’s restroom. All evidence of his lapse washes away. He’ll have to get into the hospital records, maybe the police ones as well when he gets home. He puts one foot in front of the other, a slow trudge towards the next block and then the next._ _

__*********************_ _

__Bucky stops at the common room floor on auto-pilot when he returns to the tower. The team is playing poker. The mood is relaxed and comfortable and Bucky shrinks from it. His feet carry him away, back to the elevator and he’s kicking himself for even getting out of it in the first place, but before he can summon it again, a warm hand slips through his elbow. Bucky freezes, his muscles tense to the point of vibrating, even though he knows damn well whose hand is curled over his skin. Bucky takes a breath and the air smells like metal and expensive shampoo and he glares down at the man, even as he hates himself a little for doing it. Tony’s voice is low and gentle as he asks if Bucky is doing alright._ _

__Bucky can feel a hysterical bubble of laughter form in his chest and ricochet off the lump in his throat._ _

__He still doesn’t know why Tony _cares._ He spreads his compassion over the team like a blanket, and there’s plenty for Bucky, endless comfort and warmth but he can’t trust it. Even the kindness in those brown eyes is _suspect_. Why the _fuck_ did Bucky come up here?_ _

__Does Tony _know_? Bucky was careful; he’s always careful. Bucky doubts even Natasha would be able to spot a tell, despite how out of control Bucky feels right now, but Tony is smart. Tony might be too smart, too perceptive. He’s not blinded by the fondly-remember ghost of Sergeant Barnes, like Steve, nor trying to overcompensate for a suspicious nature, like Natasha. None of the others have gotten close enough to _see_ , so why is Tony here, close enough that Bucky can count the dark eyelashes framing those sharp eyes?_ _

__Maybe Tony is just kind, the way the rest of the team has signaled time and again, to the contrary of the many news reports Bucky read before allowing himself to be brought in from the cold._ _

__Maybe the blow to the head Bucky received on their sanctioned Avengers mission eight hours ago is more of a concern than he had originally assessed._ _

__Maybe Bucky still has a little blood somewhere that he hasn’t quite managed to wipe away._ _

__“Bucky? Really, are you okay?”_ _

__Maybe Tony honestly wants to know. How the hell is Bucky supposed to know? How the hell is he supposed to be _sure_ , after everything that he’s seen and done? Bucky growls that he’s fine, snatches his arm back, and turns for the stairs._ _

__He’s not fast enough to miss the way that Tony’s face falls, but he pretends that he was. When that doesn’t work, he tells himself that Tony is a skilled actor; one doesn’t stand among the peaks of the corporate world without becoming a damn good manipulator. Even in his head it sounds sour, wrong._ _

__He wills himself to forget the twist to Tony’s mouth, the hurt in his eyes, but these days he is woefully bad at forgetting._ _


End file.
